Nav Social Menu

mushrooms

When I scribbled notes for this recipe, I entitled it Tasty Mince with a Feisty Kick. As you may know by now, there are days when I am all about flavours. I like to look at what’s in the fridge and in the cupboard and improvise. This happened during one of those day, also known as the day after I received two pudding basins to play with my Instant Pot so, clearly, something had to happen pot in pot. Right?

So, what is Pot-in-Pot (PIP) cooking? I have a whole post about it right here. It really is not very difficult and, once you have the hang of it, you’ll love it and will be thinking ahead to decide what else you can cook in your Instant Pot at the same time as your normal meals.

I used this Arga Pudding Mould (perfect for Crème Caramel too) but to be honest it is quite flimsy for the price. Although at the same time fantastic for Pot-in-Pot (PIP) cooking. You could use any bowl that fits in your Instant Pot, always bearing in mind the requirements. And a taller trivet is handy to have. Find all details of the dimensions you need in my What is Pot-in-Pot (PIP) cooking post.

You can totally cook this Lemony Mince in Oyster Sauce without the PIP rice of course! The mince is totally worth it as it’s so full of flavour. Or you could replace the rice with quartered potatoes in the pot-in-pot bowl and almost cover them with water then proceed as below (pretend they are the rice). In fact this is great for those of you wanting to make cottage pie. Can I feel a new recipe coming soon?

This pie has become all the rage in my Kitchen Gadgetry with Feisty Tapas Facebook group. There’s even a thread about what to name it Lucy’s Lazy Chicken Pie? But
Lucy isn’t lazy. Lucy’s Easy Chicken Pie? But Lucy isn’t Easy!

Lucy is of course our own Lucy Sparkle Mars. Lucy is absolutely lovely. I have had the pleasure of meeting her in person and I can’t wait to see her again! This is her pie invention and what a pie it is. It uses filo pastry, making for a lighter pie which is still as comforting as any pie. It’s beautiful with the filo pastry, a dish to quickly make when you have unexpected guests or when it’s just you for dinner and need leftovers for tomorrow. Anything goes with this one.

This pie uses a hob to oven frying pan. The Feisty Tapas crew, their fearless leader included, is a bit obsessed with the Tefal Ingenio pans as they have a handy detachable handle and can go straight from the hob to the oven, then you unclip the handle et voilà. Same to get it out, it has a tight grip so it’s great for clumsy people like me.

The Tefal Ingenio 26 cm frying pan is ideal for this pie (and the one I used).

If you don’t have a frying pan that can go in the oven, just make the mix in a normal frying pan and transfer to an oven dish.

**Update (22-10-2017): Lucy has now started her own website, Fresher Bites, where you will find easy recipes, super helpful videos. It’s designed for people starting to cook but I reckon pretty much everyone will find a few helpful hints there**

3. In the same pan (no need to wash) fry the onion for a few minutes, then add the quartered mushrooms. Add the reserved chicken and bacon and the wine, let it bubble to evaporate.

4. Add the white sauce and the mustards, stir.

5. Remove handle if using Tefal Ingenio pans or move mix to oven dish if not usign pan in oven. Top with 3 scrunched-up sheets of filo pastry, dabbed with melted butter and pop into the oven for 15 minutes. Check all pastry is browned, or turn and cook for another 5 minutes.

One of Jayson’s ready to go in the oven

As easy as that, and it looks very pretty. Unless you’re me and you forget to dab the filo pastry with butter in which case it may look more like this. Can you see the brush and butter in the background, I had to quickly dab it with it AFTER taking the pie out of the oven. If you’re as forgetful as me, do not worry it was still delicious.

This is the Tefal Ingenio pan set I have

<br />

**This post contains affiliate links. If you buy after clicking through them, it doesn’t cost you a penny but I may get a penny or two back towards running the blog. Thanks for supporting Feisty Tapas**

Did you know there’s such a thing as a National Chocolate Week? There is, and it’s right now. Not that I need an excuse to celebrate or eat chocolate any day of the year! In this household the chocolate we buy regularly is Lind’ts 85%. That’s dark, very dark. But the little Tapita absolutely loves it. The other day I had the chocolate next to the beef I was buying in my basket at the supermarket and I thought to myself: “well, husband does add cocoa to his chilli, doesn’t he?”.

This Chocolatey Beef Stew makes a luscious sauce, enjoy with a nice glass of red wine if you can. Or a beer. Can you tell I am still off the alcohol due to my meds? At least I can eat chocolate, in everything it would appear.

I made this in my Instant Pot, you can make it in your stove-top pressure cooker if you have one. I like the Instant Pot because I don’t have to babysit it, I just leave it to it and I get on with life (or with putting my feet up). You will find all my Instant Pot recipes here and, if you’re a newbie, you will find my guide to get started here.

Note: if you have a Thermomix just stick in the bowl the onion, garlic and celery and chop on speed 5 for 5 seconds.

Method

1. Press Sauté, add a dash of the oil of your choice, and fry the chopped onion, garlic and celery.

2. Add the beef and, if you have time, brown it using the Sauté button (if you do brown it, make sure you deglaze by adding a bit of red wine or stock and scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon at the end). Add the rest of the ingredients, stir. Lock the lid in. Steam release handle pointing to Sealing. Press Manual and programme 25 minutes, do a natural release at the end (the natural release is important).

3. If you would like to thicken the sauce, press Keep Warm/Cancel then press Sauté, then Adjust to set it to More and let it bubble with the lid off so that it reduces, stay near your pot as it happens quickly.

I am a big fan of serrano ham, it’s right up there with chorizo (chorizo being the clear winner as you may have gathered from previous recipes). In particular I love serrano ham with very garlicky mushrooms (recipe here). So this Chicken, Serrano Ham, Mushroom Stew was bound to happen sooner or later.

I own an electric pressure cooker (which also slow cooks, etc.), mine is an Instant Pot and I love it for the convenience of being able to walk away from it, it means I can programme it and walk away from it without having to hang around for it to hiss and then set a timer (so, if you’re making this in a stove-top pressure cooker, all you need to do is hang around and programme the time, which should be the same). All my Instant Pot and pressure cooking recipes are right here.

If you’re making it the conventional way or on a slow cooker, just follow the first sauteing/frying steps and let it run for a few hours in your slow cooker.

Serve this with mashed potatoes, cauliflower rice, cauliflower mash, vegetables, whatever takes your fancy but don’t forget a good slice of crusty bread to dip in that lovely sauce.

– 1 teaspoon chicken stock paste or half a chicken stock cube (or of course you could use my Vegetable Stock Paste which is full of flavour)

– A couple of handfuls of cherry tomatoes

– Salt and pepper

Instant Pot method:

1. Press the Sauté button, add the oil and, when it starts feeling a bit hot, add the diced serrano ham and fry it for a few minutes until it starts getting a bit golden, stir a few times.

2. Season the diced chicken with salt and pepper and add it to the inner pot to brown, stirring regularly and making sure it doesn’t catch at the bottom. If it does catch easily, you can turn the Sauté heat back down by pressing Keep Warm / Cancel followed by the Sauté button and then, immediately, the Adjust button twice to set the IP to Less (if you have v3 of the DUO / you received your DUO from June 2018, just keep pressing Sauté until the light under less is lit up).

3. Add the chopped onion and garlic (in Thermomix 5 seconds on speed 5) and stir well, let it sweat for a little while and then add the mushrooms, stir. Add the white wine and chicken stock. Scrape the bottom with a wooden spoon to deglaze the pot, make sure you get rid of any caramelised bits. Let it bubble a minute or so with the lid off for the wine to reduce a bit and not taste so strong later. Add the tomatoes, no need to stir. Lock the lid in, steam release handle pointing to Sealing, press Poultry and use the – and + buttons to programme 5 minutes, natural release.

At the end you can reduce the sauce using the Sauté setting of your Instant Pot, with the lid off. Add flour, arrowroot or gravy granules if you prefer to thicken the sauce but I don’t.

Conventional cooking (on the hob)

1. Heat oil in a heavy and wide-bottomed pot/cast iron casserole, slow cooker, whatever you have to hand. Fry the diced serrano ham over a medium-high heat until it starts getting a bit goldeny, stir a few times.

2. Season the diced chicken with salt and pepper, add it to the pot and stir well. Let it brown all over.

3.
Turn the heat down a notch and add
the chopped garlic and onion (in Thermomix 5 seconds on speed 5) and
stir well, let it sweat for a little while and then add the mushrooms,
stir. Add the white wine and chicken stock and let it bubble for a few minutes, then add the
tomatoes and let it cook on a low-medium heat until the chicken is not only cooked through but also tender.

I am absolutely loving my Instant Pot, being able to make this kind of meal mid-week with the pressure cooker function is quite a luxury (and not at all as scary as you remember pressure cookers to be!). This Pressure Cooked Whole Soy chicken is my first Instant Pot recipe on the blog. Exciting times….

Croquetas are a very typical Spanish dish. Delicious creamy béchamel bites breadcrumbed and fried. One of those seemingly simple but rather fiddly dishes that the Thermomix and a piping bag make a breeze. The mixture needs to rest in the fridge so it’s best to prepare it the day before.

These are perfect tapas, perfect picnic fare, perfect with a salad for dinner, perfect for an office lunch… the possibilities are endless.

Thank you to Eva for putting me on to the idea of using porcini and referring me to this Spanish recipe for inspiration.

Thermomix Porcini Croquetas
Makes approx. 30, depending on the size

Ingredients:

For the mixture:

– 15 g dried porcini mushrooms

– 150 g unsalted butter, roughly cubed
– 30 g onion

– 200 g plain or spelt flour (I used spelt)

– 800 g whole milk, take out of the fridge about an hour earlier if chilled
– 1/4 tsp nutmeg
– Black pepper, freshly milled
– Salt (I use Maldon sea salt), to taste but start with about a teaspoon or less

– A couple of disposable piping bags (or freezer bags)

For bread crumbing and frying:

– 2-3 eggs
– Breadcrumbs (if you ever have left over bread, always make breadcrumbs in your Thermomix and freeze them, you can use them from frozen)
– Olive oil (being Spanish this would be the traditional oil to use but you choose)

How to make the croqueta mixture:

1. Mill the porcini to a fine powder: 15 seconds, speed 10. Reserve.

2. Do not wash the bowl, add the 150 g butter and the onion: Varoma, 3 minutes, speed 4.

3. Add the flour: 100ºC, 3 minutes, speed 2.

4. Add the milk, the nutmeg, a few twists of the pepper milll and the salt: 10 seconds, speed 6.

5. Add the porcini powder: Varoma, 7 minutes, speed 4.

6. Pour the mixture in the piping bags and close tightly, leave in the fridge overnight (or for a minimum of 8-10 hours), overnight is best really (and usually more convenient).

How to fry:

1. Whisk the egg on a deep plate and place the breadcrumbs in another plate.

2. Snip the end of the piping bag and squeeze to get a few sausages onto the egg plate then cut them to your desired size, think that you ideally want to get 2-3 bites out of them, not more.

3. Heat up a good amount of olive oil in a frying pan and fry the croquetas over a moderate heat, turning them until they are golden all over. It won’t take long.

Back when I wrote this was a new deli in town, Allgoods of Ely, it actually opened a while ago but I only got a chance to visit it last weekend (I know, I know). It is full of delicious stuff: white asparagus, squid ink pasta, cheeses and meats: fabulous lomo and serrano ham. Let’s talk about that serrano ham today and what you can do to turn it into speedy Garlic and Serrano Ham Mushrooms.

As soon as I saw the serrano ham I knew I had to ask for a big chunk as well as slices. You see, if you ask for a very thick slice of it you can then dice it at home and do things like these mushrooms in no time at all.

This makes the perfect tapa or, if you need a bigger lunch, toss it with some cooked pasta at the end, or cooked noodles, or cooked rice, or cooked quinoa… You get my drift, right? For more tapas ideas check out my Easy guide to Spanish Tapas.

I had the mushrooms with a milk roll that I made the day before following the recipe in page 174 of the Fast and Easy cookbook that comes as standard in the Thermomix in the UK.

Don’t know what a Thermomix is? This post
will tell you all about it. If you live in the UK and you already have a
Thermomix or are considering buying one, I run the
really friendly and supportive Thermomix Owners UK Facebook group. Come join the Thermie chat.

¿Listos? Feel free to proportionally increase the quantities as needed (be careful not to do the olive oil though), this time it was just me and the weather is too hot for anything else so I kept it small.

Garlic and serrano ham mushrooms

Shopping list:

5 garlic cloves

15 g olive oil

A thick slice of serrano ham (just under a centimetre), diced. If there is any yellowy/orangey rind left, make sure you remove it, leave the fat on though!

130 g grey oyster mushrooms (I got them from Ocado but use any mushrooms you can find, the standard mushrooms will do very nicely too)

4. Grate Parmesan of manchego cheese over the top and serve with good crusty bread to dip in the sauce OR perfect if you toss it with cooked pasta or add cooked noodles

Tadah!

Conventional cooking

If you are making this on the stove top it’s very easy, same ingredients as above:

1. Chop the garlic finely.
2. Heat up the oil in a frying pan, medium-high.
3. Add the garlic and the serrano ham, careful that the garlic doesn’t burn, stir regularly.
4. When the serrano ham is looking goldeny (technical term there), add the mushrooms. Stir well to coat them in all the juices, turn the heat down a tiny bit until the mushrooms look ready, 5 minutes or so.

5. Serve with grated cheese over the top and a nice bit of good bread, grab a good chunk of said bread and dip it in the sauce. No, I insist, you must do this first! OR, for a bigger meal, you can just add cooked pasta, noodles, rice, mix well and serve.

Disclosure: I paid everything full price, I just like to blog about tasty things.

Add the cooked noodles, give them a quick stir with the spatula to mix well: Varoma, 1 minute, reverse, spoon speed (if using fresh noodles do the same but adapt to packet’s instructions, usually 3 minutes).

TIP: You can of course easily turn this into noodle soup by adding stock. Easy peasy.

EXTRA TIP: Sprinkle with chopped cashews for extra crunch.

Feel free to play with different flavours by adding prawns, chicken (raw, leftovers), pak choi, spring onions… or whatever takes your I know I will, just make sure you come back to tell me all about it!

This is a quick lunch for those of us who work from home, with minimum hassle but also perfect for a quick dinner.

Serve with Spanish flair (and perhaps a beer if you’re doing out of work hours?)